A brief account of Surtees’ labour in the field of sham ballad writing may be fresh to many people who merely know him as the real author of “Barthram’s Dirge” and of “The Slaying of Anthony Featherstonhaugh.” In an undated letter of 1806, Scott, writing from Ashestiel, thanks Surtees for his “obliging communications.” Surtees manifestly began the correspondence, being attracted by the “Border Minstrelsy.” Thus it appears that Surtees did _not_ forge “Hobbie Noble” in the first edition of the “Minstrelsy”; for he makes some suggestions as to the “Earl of Whitfield,” dreaded by the hero of that ballad, which Scott had already published. But he was already deceiving Scott, who writes to him about “Ralph Eure,” or “Lord Eure,” and about a “Goth, who melted Lord Eure’s gold chain.” This Lord Eure is doubtless the “Lord Eurie” of the ballad in the later editions of the “Border Minstrelsy,” a ballad actually composed by Surtees. That wily person immediately sent Scott a ballad on “The Feud between the Ridleys and Featherstones,” in which Scott believed to the day of his death. He introduced it in “Marmion.” The whiles a Northern harper rude Chaunted a rhyme of deadly feud, How the fierce Thirlwalls and Ridleys all, &c. In his note (“Border Minstrelsy,” second edition, 1808, p. xxi.) Scott says the ballad was taken down from an old woman’s recitation at the Alston Moor lead-mines “by the agent there,” and sent by him to Surtees. Consequently, when Surtees saw “Marmion” in print he had to ask Scott not to print “_the_ agent,” as he does not know even the name of Colonel Beaumont’s chief agent there, but “an agent.” Thus he hedged himself from a not impossible disclaimer by the agent at the mines. Readers of “Marmion” will remember how Once, near Norham, there did fight A spectre fell, of fiendish might, In likeness of a Scottish knight, With Brian Bulmer bold, And trained him nigh to disallow The aid of his baptismal vow.